eral years before I could seize a pen, rattle up a
subject and dash off a leader. _Now_ I can write far more easily than I
can talk. And it is a curious fact that soon after I became really
skilled at such extempore work in the opinion of the best judges, such as
Raymond, I no longer had any opportunity to practice it.

I had worked only a week or two when a rather queer, tall, roughish
Yankee was brought into the office. He worked for a while, and in a day
or two took possession of my desk and rudely informed me that he was my
superior editor and master there. He had, as many men do, mistaken
amiable politeness for humility. I replied, knowing that Mr. Beech, out
of sight, was listening to every word, that there was no master there but
Mr. Beech, and that I should keep my desk. We became affable; but I
abode my time, for I found that he was utterly incompetent to do the
work. Very soon he told me that he had an invitation to lecture in
Philadelphia. I told him that if he wished to go I would do all his work
for him. So he went, and Mr. Beech coming in, asked where Mr. --- was. I
replied that he had gone away to lecture, and that I was to do his work
during his absence. This was really too much, and the Yankee was
dismissed "in short order," the Beeches being men who made up their minds
promptly and acted vigorously. As for me, I never, shirked work of any
kind. A gentleman on a newspaper never does. The more of a snob a man
is, the more afraid he is of damaging his dignity, and the more desirous
of being "boss" and captain. But though I have terribly scandalised my
chief or proprietor by reporting a fire, I never found that I was less
respected by the typos, reporters, and subs.

I had before leaving Philadelphia published two books. One was "The
Poetry and Mystery of Dreams," which I dedicated to my fiancee, Miss
Belle Fisher. The other was an odd melange, which had appeared in
chapters in the _Knickerbocker Magazine_. It was titled _Meister Karl's
Sketch-Book_. It had no great success beyond attaining to a second
edition long after; yet Washington Irving praised it to everybody, and
wrote to me that he liked it so much that he kept it by him to nibble
ever and anon, like a Stilton cheese or a _pate de foie gras_; and here
and there I have known men, like the late Nicolas Trubner or E. L.
Bulwer, who found a strange attraction in it, but it was emphatically
caviare to the general reader. It had at